ChartsChartsThe charting tools built into Stock Investor will help you to chart and compare securities, overlay important technical data, compare stocks with each other or against indices, and even annotate and publish those charts.
The charts are highly customizable, and the tools very easy to use.
The chart page is the work area for price in Stock Investor.
To open a chart page, select the Charts icon in the toolbar at the top of the screen:
Select Price Charts to create a new chart, the New Charts dialog will appear to assist you.
Alternatively, select Saved Chart Pages to open an existing chart, and it will open up a Chart List Selector dialog from which you can select among your saved charts.
You can click also on the Price Charts icon 
anywhere
in the program to open the indicated security's chart in the Chart Page
window. For example from a Quotes List of the Start Page:
The Chart Page window contains the Charts Function bar and the charts work area.
The selected chart will display in the work area and all the tools necessary to manipulate the chart can be found in the function bar.
Go to the Chart Page Window help topic for a full description of this window and its tools.
Charts present financial data in a visual format.
There are a number of different methods of presenting the same data. Usually they are a chronological progression of trades from left to right (the x-axis) with the price information displayed on the vertical axis (y-axis).
Stock Investor supports a variety of chart types. Go to the Chart Types help topic for a full list of the types of charts available and links to individual help topics for each.
Charts can be created for any instrument and saved for future reference. The trading data in saved charts will automatically be updated each time you open them.
The notations, tool markings and indicators (see below) will also saved and updated.
The screen display of charts is also very flexible and customizable.
For a full description of the charting facility's features and functionality click Using Charts.
Drawing tools assist in the interpretation and analysis of charts.
They also allow users to record their interpretations of price movements, and to make notes which can be saved with the chart.
For more information about the groups and types of these tools, go to the Drawing Tools topic.
There are ten Hi-Lites
Hi-Lites identify trading opportunities based on mathematical relationships found in the price data.
Hi-Lites identify trading opportunities based on ABC Trading principles.
Each Hi-Lite uses the chart’s price data to identify and tag on the chart each instance of that particular ABC point or event. The parameters used to calculate each Hi-Lite, as well as the appearance of the tags displayed on the chart, can be adjusted by the user.
For more information about the range of Hi-Lites available, go to the
Hi-Lites
Indicators use the same financial data which is used to produce the charts to produce a graphic representation of a mathematical formula.
The mathematical formulae, called algorithms, each use different types of financial data in their calculation. The type of data used will determine which group the indicator belongs to. For example, indicators in the Volume group use data relating to the changes in volume of trading over time to create a graphs. Each type of volume indicator uses the volume data in slightly different manner according to its algorithm.
Sometimes the Indicators will produce graphics that resemble the charts themselves, and are in fact meant to be superimposed on the chart of the same financial instrument.
Other Indicators create autonomous graphics, with little or no relationship to the appearance of the instrument's chart.
For more information about the groups and types of these tools, go to the Indicators topic.
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Return to the Tool Bar introduction.